Department of English Studies

Faculty of Philosophy
University of Novi Sad

EXPLAINING THE PAST, ENVISIONING THE FUTURE

(Seminar paper in Academic Skills)

Marina Banjac Advisor:

000057/15 Biljana Radić-Bojanić, PhD

Novi Sad, 2018

 1. Introduction

Through the eyes of the past we can observe the human development up to this point, the
present, and through our knowledge on how we got where we stand now, we can anticipate the
similar pattern unraveling in the future. History of human kind has been a canvass for both
devastating events, enormous suffering and grievances as well as for the most beatiful art forms,
masterful expressions and powerful creations. Humans found themselves on both ends of the
spectrum of life. Creation and destruction. Birth and death.
For something to be created, there has to be enough space left by the death of the
previous form. And for something to die, it has to be created in the first place. This cyclical
nature of life has been recognized by many scientists, writers and poets. For example, W.B Yeats
talked about the cyclical nature of human history as if it has been: Turning and turning in the
widening gyre…Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold. Things must die, life cannot hold and
nurture them forever. If we transfer this notion of circles to our personal lives ,there may be a
sentence we hear from time to time: I have been running in circles. Of course, we will hear it
only at times when we recognize reoccuring patterns in our behavior and emotions. Scientists,
for example, have claimed that: substance never dies, it only changes its’ form, and eventually
finds itself in the previous form. In essence, it always ends in the starting point. I will not dwell
too much into the question where the starting point is, neither because I don’t know the answer,
nor because nobody exactly knows the answer, but because it is not the topic of this seminar
paper.
If we transfer the idea onto the larger scale, we can rightfully claim that: when people
run in circles it’s a very very, mad world *piano f-minor… (Gary Jules, Mad world). Human
achievememets were undeniably impressive throughout history, as best seen in sublime works of
music, literature, painting, architecture and sculpture. Recently, science and technology
fundementally changed our lives and enabled us to do and create things that would have been
considered miraculous in the recent past. “No doubt: The human mind is highly intelligent. Yet
its very intelligence is tainted by madness. How can we justify all the destructive and cruel wars
that were motivated by fear, greed and desire for power” (Tolle:2005:11).
The good and the bad have been opposing forces that people endevoured to explain. This
dichotomy was explained and interpreted through different, and more often than not, unrelated
cultures. Infinite alterations and chaotic unpredictability forced people to construct and define
their worldview so as to lessen their apprehension. Therefore, people tend to categorize the
inexplicable phenomena and orient themselves according to the well established social norms
and beliefs. “Worldview becomes an encompassing picture of reality based on a set of shared
assumptions about how the world works” (Samovar,Porter,McDaniel,Roy:2013:120)
 People tried to explain the world around them through different words and expressions.
But in essence, they pointed to the one and the same “thing”. Explanations always differed, but
the awarness of the existence of “it” was always the same. Some may have lost themselves in the
terms, but they would not have believed in those words in the first place if there has not been a
truth that resonated in them. Cristians refered to “it” as Jesus, Islamist as Alah, Taoists as Tao,
Buddhists as Buddha, Hinduists as Krishna and on the other hand, little more contemporary
terms are applied, such as Vortex, Universe, Presence, I, etc. What remained the same is the
tendency to name things, even though we are not capable of comprehending them. Things that
we do not control, things that we do not own. That are here even without us thinking about them.
If we are able to explain the past, we would be able to envision the future. Past and future
are tightly woven in the circle that begins and finishes in the present moment. I will try to
explain reoccuring notion of repetitivness in history through globalization and change; Religion
may serve as a base through which I find it most appropriate to explain the motives behind every
action undertaken in history. And finally, I will talk about perceptual and communicative
components which play role in shaping the distinct classifications that people usually take for
granted.

2. Globalization and change

Due to the advancements in transportation and communication technology, the cultures
are interacting now more than ever and sharing ideas amongst them is a process that has been
highly facilitated. We have two contrasting approaches which explain the interactions and the
development of cultures in different ways: Evolutionism and diffusionism.
Theory of evolutionism maintains a premise that all societies pass through a series of
distinct evolutionary stages, and differences found in cultures are due to the different
evolutionary stages of development. (Andreatta, Ferraro:2013:84). Euro-American cultures are
placed at the top of the evolutionary ladder while underdeveloped cultures are on the other end,
on the lower rungs. Higher forms of culture are more complex and the cultures of simpler
constitution and lower status tend to gravitate towards the complexity and superiority of the
higher culture. It is all just a matter of time, when underdeveloped cultures will find their place
under the sun and eventually climb up the evolutionary ladder. “It was assumed that all cultures
would pass through the same set of preordained evolutionary stages“ (Andreatta,
Ferraro:2013:84).
On the other hand, diffusionists theory states that cultures are interconnected and
mutually depend on each others’ development. The process of diffusion has enabled humans to
accumulate their creative and inventive resources. In other words, no culture is original on its
own, everything is a result of exchange of cultural features between humans. Due to this rapid
increase in our capacity to interact with people worldwide, the likelihood of cultures diffusing
has increased dramatically, in the recent decade alone. Diffusion is adoption of traits of another
culture; this process is often volontary, but it doesn’t have to be, such as in the cases of
acculturalisation,when for example, pidgin languages emerge. Acculturalisation is the forced
borrowing under conditions of external pressure of a dominating culture that imposes its own
traits upon the other culture. People of the lower status tend to adopt these dominating culture’s
traits because they were cut off from their previous cultural surrounding. “Acculturation involves
widespread reorganization of one or more cultures over a short period of time, when the groups
are systematically enslaved and opressed“ (Andreatta, Ferraro:2013:85).
In essence, both evolution and diffusion are forms of change underlying all cultures. And
there is nothing as constant as change. People change their outlooks on life and tend to
accomodate practical inventions into their culture and consequently into their daily lives.

3. Religion
People have always had the urge to search for the order and meaning of life. This search
always ended up in adressing things that we do not understand through words and terms that we
do understand. This way of functioning lessened the unpredictability and the uncontrolableness
of life. Not only was religion the sanctuary for people from the dawn of time, but was also the
underlying force that fueled the wars waged in its name.
People tried to explain the phenomena of constant alterations between the good and bad
in their lives. People always wanted to live in harmony and peace. However, those are not the
only things humans desire. Religion served as a means of control and power; ideologies that
sprung from a religion may have taken a monstrous form because of it. Never ending thirst for
more and the egoic drive that never left human’s mind at peace, made use of religion and
modified it accordingly.
Questions tackled by religions are those that have no definite answers. What happens
when we die? What is our origin? Why do good things always happen to bad people? Since there
is such a wide range of possible explanations and speculations, every religion attempted to
answer those questions in their own way. Problem is that people tend to see their own religion as
being better than the others. This happens due to the cultural conditioning. “In some societies
religion is so thoroughly embeded in the total social structure that it is difficult to distinguish
religious behavior from economic, political, or kinship behavior“ (Andreatta, Ferraro:2013:255).
 Symbolism is one of the main components of the religious practice. Abstract ideas may
be represented through images, body decorations, physical objects and performances. Customs
are the integral part of religion and they vary cross-culturally, which is best seen through
differences in their symbolic representations. Symbols carry power; people find it easier to
connect with the visual, artistic portrayal of their beleifs, as it gives them something to hold on
to. This is the reason why religion remained intact for so long. This is why it remained as one of
the most dominating concepts in human culture. It carries the power to control the human minds
through a sense of security and repentence of sins it provides; and symbols are the waypoints
people take. Religious symbols often represented the concept of connection. Not only the
connection between people, but the connection with the supernatural. So, not only does religion
connect us with other cultures, it connects us to the spiritual world as well. This is the main
reason of its never-ending existance – it connects people to something that has no end.
A strategy to avoid the unpredictability of life was to envision the future. For a long time,
prophets have been considered to be the messengers of the deities.They were though to have
mystical powers and magic, which allowed them to look into the future and what it holds. This
process of envisioning the future often included different spiritual songs, herbs and rituals, which
allowed the prophets to enter a kind of hypnosis and connect with the spiritual source. The
message they received would, more often than not, be considered a prophecy and the destiny of
their people. At times, they would envision the future of the whole world; one of such cases was
the infamous Mayan prophecy about the end of the world in 2012. This case serves as strong
evidence of the strenght symbols can carry. Although the prophecy is ancient, many people
embraced the end of the world as the Mayans predicted it. Different cultures found
correspondences with the prophecy in their own religions and made it that more believable for
everyone.
4. Classifications
People tend to classify information and world around them according to their cultural
beliefs and constrictions. The judgements of the physical world are densely connected with the
culture in which those judgements were formed and adopted as truth. For people to understand
the world around them, it is easier to classify things and people, rather than to wait and wonder
what someone or something might be like. These judgements should not be relinquished, they
should be recognized and accepted.
Realizing someone belongs to a different group, whether it be ethnical or racial, does not
necessarily imply your superiority over them. Main goal, I believe is, to give up the scale on
which we posit ourselves and others. This scale forces the comparison and its name is ego. It is
in fact true that systematized classification of the outer world may help us lessen the
apprehension and manage the chaotic nature of life itself. Classification of physical traits is much
more transparent than classification of non-physical, psychological ones. All in all, classification
can greatly aid the functioning in the world of differences. If we know the basic pinpoints in
someone’s behavior, we may predict the same pattern reoccuring in the future. In that sense we
may be able to envision and anticipate certain type of behavior.

5. Conclusion
Cultures change, people differ. However, people will always try to explain the world
around them and the world within them and that will never change since there hasn’t been and
won’t ever be a final answer to the question of our existance. We are conditioned by our past,
and we play our roles according to our belief systems. Future will always be unpredictable, and
that is what we fear the most. Thus, we will project ourselves in the future and make an image
based on the beliefs we assembled in the past.
 References:
Andreatta, Susan., Ferraro, Gary. (2013). Elements of Culture - An applied Perspective. USA:
Wadsworth,Cengage Learning.

Nanda Serena., Warms L. Richard. (2012) Culture Counts: A concise Introduction to Cultural
anthropology (2nd ed.) USA: Wadsworth,Cengage Learning.

Tolle, Eckhart. (2005) A New Earth. New York: Penguin group